How did a computer scientist such as Geoffrey Hinton manage to win a Nobel Prize in physics when computer science already has its own Nobel Prize equivalent in the Turing Awards?

A fly on the wall at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

[Older voice] "Mmm. What about Hinton, he's widely regarded? Nobody got fired for buying IBM"

… then anything is possible. There’s no rule that a Nobel Prize has to make sense.^*

What are the best items to buy from a furniture shop?

When he's standing, in front of you

"Naah, Linnainmaa is a Finn. Can't give it to a bloody Finnish mathematician. Let's go for drinks. Brännvin anyone?"

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

What are the pros and cons of a prospective bride/groom not having any siblings?

^* Fibiger got the 1926 Medicine prize for the discovery of Spiroptera carcinoma (Don’t ask).

[The basic structure of artificial neural networks] has close similarities with spin models in statistical physics applied to magnetism or alloy theory. This year’s Nobel Prize in Physics recognizes research exploiting this connection to make breakthrough methodological advances in the field of ANN.

(Mumbles of assent)

What do you think of a parent telling their adult child to “keep their personal life to themselves” in relation to talking to them? No reason they should say that it was mean what should I do?

In December 1973, when Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, comedian Tom Lehrer dropped his mic and stamped on it—satire had just died.

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

"Good idea, but how can we wangle something that says 'Physics'?"

Here's Why Rational People Skip Vaccines Even When They Trust Science - ScienceAlert

In awarding prizes, the Nobel Committees often seem only marginally more competent than MTG is at explaining meteorology. And if they can give a literature prize for lyrics like:

There you go.^†

They then move on to selectively provide their own version of history. But hey, it’s OK. They wanted controversy, didn’t they? Whatever.

Does Form Really Shape Function? - Quanta Magazine

You can have your cake and eat it too

(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)

Whatever.

Why have cell phones, the internet, and reality TV turned the world into a toilet, as this has not advanced us in any way?

"Hey guys, AI is pretty big so let's centre our prizes on it this year. We can get some attention, and it's all about advertising, at the end of the day, isn't it?"

Whatever.

Fortunately, we are privy to the discussion that led up to this:

Why is Bollywood failing?

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

"Where can we shoehorn it in? Chemistry is easy 'cos AlphaFold; but what about physics? A bit more challenging, right?"

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

I can not sleep. what is the problem?

"Good point, I'm sure we can swing it. And let's tack on Hopfield while we're about it."

"Didn't he do something with Boltzmann in it? That sounds physics-y. RBMs and stuff, eh?"

[Younger voice] "But wait a minute, Ising-Lenz goes back to the 1920's. And didn't Hinton plagiarise rather a lot? He also didn't invent modern backprop, did he, that's Linnainmaa? And Amari preceded Hopfield, too. That's not a good look."

Do leftists understand why young men are becoming more right-wing?